The Curious Incident of the Stars in the Night-Time
by Doris the Younger
Summary: Donna Noble has one last chance to regain her memories-and the person who's about to give it to her is Mycroft Holmes. But Mycroft isn't likely to enjoy his TARDIS adventure. He'll probably survive it-but he will never be the same again.
1. Firbourne House, outside London

**June 26, 2010 – Firbourne House, outside London**

Mycroft Holmes' official title was not particularly impressive—he was merely the Permanent Under-Secretary of Coordination & Operations. What this meant in practice, however, was that he coordinated almost everything. His brother might choose to believe that he'd gotten power through some sort of nefarious machinations, but Sherlock was quite wrong. It was simply a matter of concentration—relentless, unending concentration on every single detail that might be important.

Today, however, Mycroft Holmes wasn't concentrating on government affairs. All week long he'd been cooling his heels at a fashionable resort hotel outside London.

Firbourne House was an establishment that catered to the elite. It was extravagantly expensive and aggressively stylish. The resort's pampered guests were provided with every possible amenity—spa, sauna and gymnasium, tennis courts, even a bridle trail—but the hotel was just a bit too far from the City for him to commute to his office in Whitehall. That's precisely why he'd been sent here. His superiors had graciously suggested that he should spend two or three weeks at Firbourne House —perhaps more—"until you can get things straightened out."

It hadn't really been a suggestion.

The man who held the reins of the British government in his hands twiddled a titanium white oil crayon in his fingers and stared critically at the half-finished drawing in front of him. It was a night landscape of the wooded grounds around Firbourne House. The full moon shone overhead in a sky full of stars and the lights of London glowed in the distance.

He'd been working on this picture for days, but he had to admit that it wasn't very good. Supposedly the Holmes family had art in the blood but there were no signs of it here. It really didn't matter, though—once this particular piece was finished he would never dare to display it.

He heard gravel crunch right behind him and immediately after that, the officious words of a stranger.

"Your picture is very pretty but there's a mistake in it."

Mycroft repressed his initial spurt of anger almost automatically. Over the past few months he'd become accustomed to this sort of thing. Today's annoyance was just another twist of the rope. He turned to glare at his unwanted art critic.

Pushing forty, unfashionably styled ginger hair, perhaps fifteen pounds overweight. Her cheap shoes and grey linen suit screamed Marks & Spenser. No engagement or wedding ring; she was clearly a woman on the shelf.

"A mistake? Let me tell you what you're about to say. You're going to tell me that there are no such things as stars. Believe it or not, I'm aware of that—everyone's aware of that."

And that was his problem. Mycroft had never actually seen these so-called 'stars'—he wasn't as mad as all that—but sometimes he dreamed of them swirling mysteriously around the moon.

Miss Ginger puffed up with indignation. "Oi! Don't put words in my mouth! That's not what I was going to say at all."

She jabbed a callused typist's finger toward the flaring white dots he'd speckled across the sky. "Look there! You've drawn the constellation of Orion upside down. That red star, Betelgeuse—it ought to be on top. And the blue one, Rigel, should be on the bottom."

Startled, Mycroft gave the woman a more careful evaluation. She still seemed quite ordinary—but like him, she was a Stargazer. Unlike him, however, she was claiming to know the names of some of the 'stars.' Of course the most likely explanation for this was that she babbled out her delusions whenever she saw anything remotely star-shaped.

But then he re-examined his artwork and realized that, yes, he had added some red and blue highlights when he drew those two 'stars.' Why had he done that? Weren't stars supposed to be white? And why hadn't he noticed that until she mentioned it?

At this point Mycroft's well-honed analytical sense kicked in. Delusion was still the most likely explanation, but it was possible—although highly improbable—that the woman somehow knew something about these 'stars.' He had to find out the truth. If there was some sort of conspiracy going on that he hadn't been briefed about—then perhaps he wasn't going mad after all.

He shifted his irritated glare into an engaging smile—the one he usually reserved for small children and the less problematic members of the royal family. "I'm impressed that you managed to catch my error. You must have a good eye. But it's too hot for me to stand out here and correct it now. Would you care to join me inside for lunch?"

His art critic's disgruntled pout swiftly changed to an expression of surprised pleasure. "That—that would be nice. Yes, I would. I'd enjoy that very much."

Of course she would. The woman had to be desperately lonely. To be labeled a Stargazer was to be walled off from the rest of the human race.

It was the work of a moment for him to cover the unfinished drawing. "I'm Mycroft Holmes. And you?"

"Donna. My name is Donna Noble."

The resort's three-star café was practically deserted when they walked inside. Dr. Merriweather, a sallow brunette tapping away as usual on her laptop, was the only other guest that he could see. She was supposed to be an endocrinologist on sabbatical, but Mycroft had deduced almost immediately that she was a psychiatrist sent to observe him.

Selecting a table as far as possible from his oblivious spy, Mycroft sat down with his new source of intel and perused the menu. Everything looked delicious but he really shouldn't eat any of it—except perhaps the garden salad? When Donna ordered the chicken Kiev, however, he decided to fling caution to the winds and boldly followed her example. Afterwards he would call for the dessert tray, too. He might have been sent out to pasture but that didn't mean he had to eat grass.

By the time lunch arrived they were 'Mycroft' and 'Donna'. He started off the conversation with safe topics—the wretchedly hot weather, what did she think of the rose gardens, whatever could the Americans be up to now. After a time he remarked vaguely that he was a minor government official in London, very boring, nothing worth talking about. She replied just as vaguely that she was a temporary office worker, very boring, nothing worth talking about either.

Eventually their conversation turned to travel. For a mere office temp Donna Noble had managed quite a bit of globe-trotting—Cadiz, Tenerife, Cairo. Mycroft ventured a few guarded anecdotes about his own out-of-country peregrinations and discovered that Donna considered them much more interesting than he did.

After he finished the last scrap of his chocolate rumcake he suggested a walk after lunch. Donna smiled self-deprecatingly and rose to her feet. "Walk off some of the calories we just ate, you mean. Sure, why not?"

"Calorie counting is old-school banting. My diet specialist tells me that the best way to lose weight is to choose foods that accelerate your metabolism." Mycroft offered Donna his arm in a grand gesture, pinned her fingers in the crook of his elbow, and shepherded her outside to find a secluded place suitable for an interrogation.

The June sun was burning down fiercely as they strolled along one of Firbourne House's picturesque cobblestone paths. A few resort guests were braving the heat of the day, but most were reading under the awnings or picnicking beneath the shade trees. They were laughing and enjoying themselves as if they didn't have a care in the world.

How he loathed them, each and every one.

Donna had dressed for the heat, but Mycroft, who'd never been one for 'casual wear', was soon sweltering in his three-piece suit. He was briefly tempted to remove his suit jacket, but no, once you admitted to yourself that you were uncomfortable there was no end to the fussing you put yourself through. Eventually he spotted a covered lawn swing tucked away behind the tennis courts. It was far enough from the main building that nobody would be able to eavesdrop on them.

"Shall we sit down over there in the shade?"

"Good idea," Donna agreed. "I think I'm beginning to melt."

When they reached the swing, she settled herself on its wicker seat and Mycroft sat down right beside her. He considered himself a good judge of character, and it was obvious to him that Ms. Noble wouldn't care for the pressure of a vacation flirtation. She would prefer friendliness and camaraderie, and when absolutely necessary, he could do 'camaraderie.'

Squeezing her hand in a comradely gesture, he asked, "Donna—who sent you here to Firbourne House?"

Donna used her free hand to brush a damp lock of hair away from her forehead. "When my granddad won some money in a lottery my mum talked him into it. She'd read about that videogame executive who got better here and she thought it was worth a try."

"Richard Garriott?" Mycroft had read that news story too. After Garriott had been caught attempting to build a rocketship in the American desert, his board had packed him off to Firbourne House for a 'rest cure'. "I seriously doubt that he was 'cured' of anything—but he did figure out what he needed to say to get his company back."

Donna nodded, unsurprised. "Yeah, that's what I thought too. Mum and I used to worry about my granddad. Wilf has a telescope, you see, and he looks up at the moon most clear nights. Mum never dreamed I'd have enough imagination to be a Stargazer."

She stared into the dazzling sunshine and said gruffly, "But it was me."

Clearly, Donna was no babbling lunatic. She was a rational woman, her speech was lucid and sensible, and her emotional responses were more normal than any you'd get from the Holmes family. But she believed in stars.

And that was more than enough to doom her.

With the skill of long practice, Mycroft kept the bitterness out of his voice. "My brother Sherlock never bothers to look up at the sky. Nothing matters to him but his work. He doesn't even know that I'm here."

Of course Sherlock could easily deduce what was going on if he spent even a moment thinking about his own brother… No. Don't think about that.

After glancing at his strained expression, Donna swiftly changed the subject. "So, what kind of work does your brother do?"

"He's a consulting detective." Responding to her blank stare, he gave her his usual explanation. "He solves murders through the power of deductive reasoning and then explains to the Metropolitan Police why their own solutions are completely wrong."

Donna laughed. "Oh, they must really love him for that."

"Apparently in particularly difficult cases they do consider him useful as a last resort."

"A lot of times that's why office temps like me are called in—as a last resort when the regular staff's running around panicking."

Mycroft smirked. It would be amusing to see Sherlock's face if he was told what she'd said….

Enough of this. These pleasantries had been crafted for a purpose.

"Donna—it was my superiors who sent me here. They won't let me return to work until I can convince them that I'm sane. You know how that goes." When she nodded, he pushed on grimly. "You're my last hope. You seem to know something about these 'stars'. You even named the ones in my drawing. How were you able to do that?"

Donna frowned as she tried to track down an errant memory. "I'm sorry, Mycroft—I have no idea how I come up with the things that I say. Words just pop into my head and I don't know afterwards why I said them. It's—it's been happening more and more recently."

He didn't need to state the obvious. She was running out of time the same as he was.

"Do you ever dream about the stars?" he asked more gently.

Donna ran her fingers through her damp hair. "No, never. But when I look up at the sky at night I find myself thinking, 'I know there's something out there.'"

And that was one more thing they had in common. But in her case, there was information hidden somewhere in her mind—information that Mycroft Holmes desperately needed. He pursed his lips. "Ever been hypnotized?"

"I can't be hypnotized," she said flatly. "It's been tried."

Now that was very interesting, because he couldn't be hypnotized either. MI5 had a training program for government workers who handled 'eyes only' documents. True, two data points didn't prove a theory—but they certainly made it worth investigating.

"Those odd star names—Ryegell and Beetlejuice—do you know what they mean? Have you ever heard of them before?"

"I'm afraid that I just don't remember. I feel like the answer's on the tip of my tongue but I can't spit it out."

He would check the names out later on the Internet, then. "As it happens, I have heard of Orion. He was a young hunter in a minor Greek myth who became the lover of the goddess Diana. She was tricked into shooting an arrow at him and killed him by mistake."

"I went to business school. Greek mythology was not a part of the curriculum."

"But mythology is everywhere!" he protested. "You must have run into references to it now and then. Didn't you ever watch _Troilus and Cressida_? _Mourning Becomes Elektra_? _Clash of the Titans_?"

Donna was already shaking her head. "No, no, and no."

A sad commentary on the state of British education, although irrelevant to his current objective.

Mycroft had become increasingly convinced that 'Orion' was more than a mere 'constellation'—whatever that was. It sounded like a security password. He was no IT expert, but he understood IT security concepts. Most people who used passwords were essentially witless. Once they created their first password they followed the same pattern for all the others.

Here was a task that was tailor-made for his own strong suit—absolute, relentless concentration. He might have a chance now—if Donna would cooperate with him.

"Donna, I want to try something that could be very important for both of us. I'm going to recite names from Greek mythology and I want you to tell me if any of them sound familiar to you. I think they're connected to these 'stars' somehow."

"Okay," she said promptly.

So the woman was willing to place herself in the hands of a man she'd met only hours before. That would get her into trouble sooner or later. Repressing his sigh of relief, Mycroft patted Donna's own hand, then slid his thumb around to the pulse point on her wrist. If her heartbeat altered when she heard a name, he would know instantly.

"All right then, here we go. Do any of these names ring a bell? Zeus, Hera, Ares, Demeter, Hermes, Apollo, Artemis, Hephaestus…"

As the list went on he couldn't help but feel a bit ridiculous but there was no help for it. "Theseus, Medea, Achilles, Patroclus, Odysseus, Iphigenia, Agamemnon, Perseus, Circe…"

At least Donna didn't think this was silly. She was concentrating almost as hard as he was.

What else? Monsters. It was the monsters that people found most memorable. "Scylla, Charybdis, Minotaur, Cyclops, Hydra, Sphinx, Chimera, Cerberus, Medusa…"

Something must have clicked in Donna's head, because she twisted away from his grasp and stumbled to her feet. Her eyes were completely black—the irises had been eaten up by the pupils. "Medusa! The Medusa Cascade!"

It was as if someone else—or something else—was occupying her skin. Perhaps that someone else knew the answer to his question. "What are the stars? You must tell me!"

She skittered away from him and shook her head as if something was rattling inside. "They're all gone—everything's gone! Nothing's left but the Earth and Moon. Donna wasn't supposed to remember this. You shouldn't have made her remember..."

Donna was shuddering convulsively as if she was having a seizure. He had to know the truth, so he'd pushed her and he'd pushed her and he'd pushed her—and now he'd broken her. Mycroft felt a reluctant stab of guilt. This was his responsibility. He grabbed at her hand to steady her…

…and the world shattered into a brilliant kaleidoscope.

Laser-light schematics flickered into existence to etch holographic wallframes all around them. A glowing mist oozed up from the grass to form a gleaming green floor while a translucent column rose from a stylized hexagonal console and began to emit a 'whomp whomp whomp' that rattled his teeth and bones.

This had to be some sort of hallucination—Mycroft could still make out the lawn swing and tennis courts beyond the electronic representation of what seemed to be a control room. They hadn't left the grounds of Firbourne House.

Rainbow ribbons were shooting out from the column to slap into Donna's forehead, one after another. She staggered, but he still had hold of her hand so he was able to keep her from falling. Her face was chalky and her eyes unfocused, but at least they looked like human eyes—they were no longer those horrible black voids.

Mycroft's danger instincts were on high alert. They had to get out of here somehow, but how? Laser beams—you didn't just saunter through strange laser beams. Someone had to come up with an explanation fast and he didn't think that it was going to be him.

"Donna," he whispered, "Do you have any idea what's going on here?"

His increasingly-surprising companion straightened up and exclaimed with an air of completely inappropriate cheerfulness, "Oh! Isn't this funny! It looks like the control room of the Doctor's TARDIS."

"TARDIS? What do you mean, TARDIS?" Mycroft muttered in disbelief.

"It means 'Time and Relative Dimensions in Space'," Donna said matter-of-factly. "The TARDIS is a time machine that can move in space too. I used to travel in it awhile back."

His brain cells were screaming that there had to be a more rational explanation than that. While he was trying to come up with one, Donna unexpectedly hauled him toward the console. Caught by surprise, he stumbled and nearly fell on the spurious green floor.

"What's going on, old girl?" Donna asked the column, which had started to move up and down within the console in an unnervingly suggestive manner.

The voice that answered her was clearly mechanical—but also sounded female.

"The universe is undergoing a total event collapse. Throughout all space and time, every star has gone supernova. Only the Earth and its Moon remain, but the TARDIS field that protects them is weakening."

Donna's expression was incredulous but unfazed. "Wait! Wait! I thought I'd already handled that! Who's causing this?"

"Entities unknown to the Doctor are causing the TARDIS to simultaneously explode at all points in history. This explosion will ultimately erase the universe."

Erase… the… universe…

He wasn't going to break down and babble, Mycroft told himself sternly. Above all else, there would be no babbling.

"What can we do to fix this?" Donna asked without missing a beat. "Can you take us to wherever this started so we can stop the entities?"

"I cannot transport you anywhere," the machine voice said with a tone of regret. "What you perceive as the TARDIS control room is only a holographic projection. TARDIS itself is fixed a thousand miles from Earth and cannot move either in time or in space."

"So—there's really nothing we can do to help?" Donna took a deep breath. "All right, where's the Doctor? What's going to happen next?"

The column flashed a digital light pattern. "Fifteen minutes into the future of this timeline, the Doctor will crash the Pandorica chamber into the heart of the TARDIS and seed the TARDIS explosion with atoms from the original timeline in order to reset the universe."

Donna sighed with relief. "Good old Doctor. I should have known he'd come up with something."

Mycroft Holmes was not babbling. No, he wasn't. He was maintaining a very tight control over himself and he was standing very, very still…

…until Donna Noble started to topple onto the floor—or onto the grass, whichever it really was. He clamped down on her wrist and lowered her carefully, then bent to touch her forehead. Not good—it felt clammy and cold, and her breath was rattling in her throat.

He didn't need to be a superscientist to realize that the ribbons striking her forehead and seeping into her skin were harming her. Every time one of them hit, Donna winced and her eyelids flickered weakly.

Time machines and event collapses were beyond his comprehension, but if there was one thing that Mycroft Holmes understood, it was intimidation. He directed his best imposing glare at the translucent column and demanded, "Who are you? What are you doing to Donna Noble? What is your authority to do this?"

The voice that came from the column was solemn but not indifferent. "I am the TARDIS matrix. DoctorDonna is dying and I can do nothing to prevent it. A human mind cannot survive full intersect with the TARDIS systems."

"Then stop intersecting with her, you bloody thing!" If they were going to be erased anyway, he might as well be rude.

"What you request is outside the capability of the TARDIS control system. DoctorDonna has been sealed to the TARDIS."

Mycroft's blood boiled. It never failed. Whenever a slightly harder-than-usual problem turned up, some flunky would always yammer, 'It's not in my job description.'

"Check your systems again," he said icily. "If you have the power to reboot the entire universe you must have a way to 'unseal' a woman who's dying right here in front of you."

The column flashed several more times. Was it checking its systems as he'd ordered or was it bringing weapons systems online?

It was the former, thank goodness.

"In theory, it would be possible to run your request during the reset as a subroutine. But before I can allow you to override the Doctor's reset protocol I must first receive instructions from an authorized sentient operator."

An authorized operator. That would have to be Donna. Or Doctor Donna, as the Matrix referred to her. Mycroft crouched down and brushed Donna's cheek. His heart sank when she opened her eyes but didn't seem to recognize him. In her current condition she wouldn't be able to give orders to the TARDIS—she wouldn't even be able to string together a coherent sentence.

His ultimate archenemy—the blithering rulebook—had finally defeated him.

Then the control voice spoke again. For a machine it sounded a trifle tentative, and oddly enough—as he finally realized—it had an English estuary accent.

"Perhaps…"


	2. A transcendental tennis court

**June 26, 2010 – A transcendental tennis court**

Perhaps?

Mycroft directed a furious glare at the TARDIS control column.

"Perhaps WHAT?"

"Identify yourself, Earthman." The control voice now seemed quite sure of itself—even commanding. "You are the entity that is making the request. What is your authority to issue it?"

Mycroft rose to his feet and stared at a column of light that was the most formidable adversary he'd ever faced in his whole life. It was all going to come down to him. Well, it usually did.

"My name is Mycroft Holmes and I am—"

What could he possibly say to convince the Matrix? That he was a prime mover in the whole British Government? That he could pull enough strings that he almost _wa_s the British Government? That he was the man who made the decisions no one else would make?

Useless. Utterly useless. This thing was readying itself to reboot the universe. Nothing that he'd ever accomplished in his entire life would matter in the least to the TARDIS matrix.

But _**Donna**_ mattered to it.

He drew himself up to his full, not-inconsiderable height. "I am the sentient that your Doctor Donna chose to accompany her."

When all else fails, go with the truth.

The colours in the column swirled excitedly and the 'whomp whomp whomp' grew louder. When the voice finally answered him, it almost sounded…relieved.

"Acknowledged. Your status as DoctorDonna's Companion is accepted, Mycroft Holmes. I will permit you to override the Doctor's reset protocol to save the life of Donna Noble."

"Just like that?" Mycroft asked blankly, then cursed himself for a fool. What was he trying to do—talk the Matrix out of it?

"According to my Time Lord's standard operating procedure," the control voice explained, "the Doctor's Companion is to be considered a trustworthy sentient."

Trustworthy? _Him? _But never mind that—he needed to concentrate on the main problem.

"What sort of instructions do I need to give to you?" He was still no superscientist, and this TARDIS was centuries—perhaps eons—beyond any technology he'd ever seen.

"It is quite simple, Mycroft Holmes. When the reset starts, the potential for change will exist in every moment of Donna Noble's life. You must select the most suitable moment in her timeline for a temporal divergence and tell me how it should be altered."

'Quite simple'—what a lie. But on the other hand, this sounded like a matter of facts and figures. Finally, something that he understood. Mycroft relaxed just a little…

…until a rainbow of light slammed into his skull and a torrent of the images, thoughts, feelings, and sensations of Donna Noble's life poured into his mind at overwhelming speed. The Matrix was feeding him the information in the manner a computer was most familiar with—as a data dump.

Ohgodohgodohgodohgod…

Sherlock had a Mind Palace. He'd been thrown into a bloody Wind Tunnel. His mind was being swamped, his brain overloaded with information. He was drowning in data…

Enough! He was Mycroft Holmes. Somehow he would control this.

The moments of Donna Noble's existence were strobing by too fast for him to comprehend. Too fast, too many… He desperately batted whole streams of rainbow ribbons to the left and the right and some of the remainder came into focus.

…vanilla fudge roller skates Strathclyde bus first date football pool typing test scuba dive wedding dress scrambled eggs birthday cake haulage truck screeching brakes…

He could feel the TARDIS matrix watching him from outside the bubble of his Wind Tunnel. It wasn't trying to help him—but then again, he hadn't asked for its help, had he?

"Cut down the streams!" he gasped. "Just give me the moments associated with the TARDIS! I can't deal with everything at once!"

…Christmas tree Racnoss Adipose call box Pompeii Ood brain Martha Jones Messaline River Song Shan Shen missing Earth Dalek Caan Medusa Cascade…

Medusa Cascade! He'd been right! 'Medusa' was the password.

…a nightmare vision of Donna Noble dying in her Companion's arms…

When that final image streamed into his brain Mycroft had to repress a cold shiver. But right now he needed to concentrate on the current problem. Later on he would figure out what could be done about the… the other thing.

"Stop! Run the Medusa Cascade by me again. A little slower, if you please," he ordered grimly, as if he were dealing with one of his duller subordinates.

'A little slower' was still blisteringly fast but he could follow most of what was happening.

…a stolen Earth…the Medusa Cascade…captured by Daleks…the sound of a heartbeat…a severed hand…a duplicate Doctor…the Inversion Catalyser…a Time Lord's mind activated by electric pulse…the defeat of Davros…salvation of the cosmos…the Destroyer of Worlds...his sad face and his kind voice and his hands reaching out to Donna's temples…

_"__**Oh, my God! No! Don't make me go back. Doctor, please, please! No!**__"_

But he did it anyway. He took her memories away.

The ribbons were still boring into Mycroft's brain and a glittering mist was swirling all around him. In the midst of this chaotic lightshow he could barely see his hand in front of his face—he certainly couldn't see Donna.

She was still there, though. She had to be there.

The clock was ticking down. It was now or never. But how dare he alter even a moment of the battle that had saved the universe?

He would dare because he was Mycroft Holmes, the man who made the decisions no one else would make.

After the info-dump he felt that he understood this TARDIS and its Doctor a little better. It was energy out of the Doctor's own severed hand that had infected Donna with a Time Lord's mind.

If Donna didn't grasp that hand, the universe would be destroyed. Not an option.

If the Time Lord mind didn't activate, the universe would be destroyed. Not an option.

If Donna's memories weren't deleted, the TARDIS intersect would kill her. Not an option.

What alternatives were left? What element in this situation was expendable? He had to concentrate. He didn't dare miss even the tiniest detail. Wait! The hand. It was the hand that had caused all this…

"Chop off her hand!" Mycroft shouted in a burst of inspiration. "The suitable moment is the moment of Donna's victory. In that instant, cut off her hand—only make sure that the Doctor's memories and his Time Lord mind is trapped within it."

As he listened to the instructions that he himself was giving, Mycroft's eyes widened with incredulity. They sounded more like a fairy tale than rational science.

"Is that even remotely possible?" he demanded of the sparkle-shrouded TARDIS column.

"It is within the bounds of possibility," the control voice replied blandly. "In this circumstance, probability does not really apply."

Mycroft sagged with relief. Donna had been right—the gut instinct that came hand in hand with Planet Earth would see them through.

Then he heard the ominous words, "Subroutine loading."

The schematic walls of the TARDIS control room vanished in a flash and he found himself on his hands and knees behind the tennis courts, gasping for breath. Donna was sprawled motionless on the ground beside him.

He knew what was about to happen. In the next few moments she was going to die. He'd done everything in the universe that he could think of and she would still die.

Just as he'd seen his future self doing, Mycroft sat down on the grass and pulled Donna Noble into his arms. While she still lived, he would be as kind to her as he could. He softened his voice until it sounded gentle and caring—as caring as the Doctor, the Destroyer of Worlds.

"I know how much it hurts. Trust me. It won't hurt for very much longer."

Donna's head was drooping onto his shoulder like a wilting flower. When she started to speak every word made her sob with pain, but she kept right on going.

"I traveled in space, I traveled in time. I saw wonders that you can't imagine, alien planets and people, the future and the past. And I mattered, Mycroft, I really mattered. It's worth dying to be able to remember that."

Mycroft awkwardly petted her hair. "Yes, Donna. I understand completely."

"Don't leave me—please don't leave me."

All the people that she'd fought alongside and all the people that she'd saved—every one of them had left her. In the end, no one was there for her but him.

"I won't, Donna. I won't leave."

Her eyes were starting to close as she drifted off into her final sleep. It was better this way, he thought bleakly—better that she wouldn't have to face what was about to happen. If he'd gotten it right, the next Donna would be allowed to keep her memories.

Assuming that the Doctor succeeded—and he always did—the reset protocol would restore the universe and its timeline back to what it was supposed to be. And that would be a good thing—for the universe.

For Mycroft Holmes it would not be so good. What was the mind of a man, after all, but the sum of his experiences? The unnatural starless Earth that would soon be replaced was the only world he knew. Everything that he'd ever done or thought or felt was about to be overwritten. The man that he was would, quite simply, never have existed.

In a few more minutes another man would stand up in his clothes.

Mycroft clutched his Doctor a little more tightly and waited to be deleted.


	3. 221B Baker Street, London

**September 30, 2010 – 221B Baker Street, London**

It had been drizzling off and on all day. John Watson shrugged off his raincoat and hung it on a peg to dry, then aimed a critical eye at the letter that was waiting on the hall table. A deckled-edged envelope addressed to 'Sherlock Holmes, Esq. & John H. Watson, M.D.' did not bode well.

The letter had been sent to the two of them, so he might as well give it a glance. Cautiously, he slit open the envelope with his pocket-knife. He wasn't paranoid but there **were** such things as contact poisons.

Scanning the note within, he whistled sharply and clattered up the stairs. His flatmate was at home now—you could tell by the nasty chemical smells wafting downstairs. This was definitely something that Sherlock ought to know about.

Sherlock didn't bother to look up when John came into their sitting room. He seemed to be braising pennies over a Bunsen burner—a terrible thing to do to money, especially since Sherlock hadn't been paid for a case in over two weeks.

Twirling the envelope in his fingers, John announced casually, "I brought up a letter that was addressed to both of us."

"From?" Sherlock's eyes didn't veer from his experiment.

"Your brother Mycroft."

"Destroy it."

Really, Sherlock was so predictable. John shoved the envelope into the flame of the Bunsen burner, watched it ignite, then flipped it into the fireplace. "It's too bad, though. It was an invitation to his wedding."

Sherlock's eyebrows shot up. "Mycroft's getting married? To a woman?"

"He's not gay, is he?" Sherlock could be an arse sometimes, but he'd hate to think that Sherlock would make the jokes that he did if his brother actually was gay.

"What I should have said was, 'to a live woman?'"

Now there was a cringe-worthy statement. "Believe me, you shouldn't have."

Sherlock pushed himself away from the Bunsen burner. "You know my brother—maintaining control means everything to him. I doubt that he'd want to have a woman underfoot who might question his decisions."

"I don't know—there are still women around who expect their husbands to rule the roost." After a short pause, John enquired, "Aren't you at all curious about who she is?'

"All right, what's the name of the doormat?"

"How would I know? You told me to destroy the letter."

"And you memorized every line of it first."

Well—that was true enough. "He's your only brother, and hopefully, this is his only wedding. You ought to go."

Sherlock gave him a long, morose scowl. "I suppose I'm expected to bring a present."

"Mycroft knows you. I'm sure he doesn't expect a wedding gift from you."

"Perhaps a matching pen and pencil? He certainly signs his name to enough secret orders."

John sighed in exasperation. "You're missing the point of a wedding gift, Sherlock. You give the present to the bride and the groom, not just to your brother."

Sherlock's expression was mulish, but John was sure that he'd come around in time.

Preparing for the joyous occasion was, not to put too fine a point on it, an abominable experience.

"Bath?" Sherlock's voice rose to a near shriek. "Who the hell has a destination wedding in Bath?"

"That's what the invitation said. Friday, October 9, 7:30 P.M., Royal Crescent Hotel, Bath."

"Why Bath? Mycroft must be up to something," Sherlock said darkly.

"It's possible, I suppose." John struggled for patience. "It's also possible that the bride's family lives in Bath."

"And the name of the bride's family is?"

"If you wanted to know who she was, you shouldn't have told me to destroy the invitation."

Sherlock's response to this, of course, was to sulk.

There was a perfectly good train that went down to Bath but Sherlock refused to consider it. "What if the wedding drags on past the last return? We wouldn't want to be trapped overnight in Bath!"

Fine, whatever. Friday next they piled into a battered Mini Cooper that Sherlock had borrowed from one of his dodgier associates and Sherlock folded himself into the passenger seat, a badly-wrapped Art Deco teapot nestled in his arms. "This should do well enough. Everyone drinks tea, John."

John tossed his own gift, a matching pair of umbrellas, into the back seat next to his overnight duffle. Sherlock might not want to stay the night, but an old campaigner like him ought to be prepared for eventualities.

**October 9, 2010 – Royal Crescent Hotel, Bath**

It was past sunset when they arrived in Bath. Traffic had been backed up for miles and Sherlock's grumbling had plucked hard at John's last nerve. The Royal Crescent Hotel was a honey-brick Georgian-style structure that curved in a half-circle along the arc of the road. John had to admit, it was a magnificent piece of architecture. There might be something to this destination wedding business, after all.

Mycroft's personal assistant Anthea was waiting for them at the car park. She was wearing a stunning burgundy velvet dress with white satin flounces but did not seem to be in a party mood.

"You're late."

"We couldn't help it," an embarrassed John told her. "There was an accident on the M4."

"If we are already late then harping on the matter will only make us later," Sherlock snapped. In his smart black suit and midnight blue satin shirt he looked like a trendy mortician. "Where is this wedding being held, then?"

"In the Dower House behind the main building." Anthea shepherded them through the hotel's main entrance, where two nondescript men divested them of their packages and added the gifts to a pile on a wooden table. John eyed these staff members with suspicion. They had to be Mycroft's men—both of them were wearing concealed weapons. Now that he thought of it, Anthea's satin flounces probably hid a pistol too.

As they hurried through the hotel and out to the grey stone building behind it, Sherlock ordered testily, "Tell me about my brother's bride."

"We haven't had much time to investigate—" Anthea began.

"Oh please. You took a fine-tooth comb to her."

Mycroft's PA shrugged. "Donna Noble, 38 years old, born and raised in Chiswick, lives with her widowed mother Sylvia Noble, received a BTEC extended degree from Croydon College in 1995, various temporary assignments in the field of office support, no arrests or convictions."

"How did she meet my brother?"

"I'm told that she came in as an office temp on one of our unclassified floors. Supposedly they ran into each other at the July All-Staff Meeting and hit it off."

"You're joking." Sherlock's face was a study in skepticism.

"My jokes are funny. If you want more information, ask your brother."

As soon as they entered the Dower House Anthea left them. "I still have things to do. The wedding is past the double doors in the Montague Suite. Bridegroom's side is on the left."

At the double doors another nondescript man in black handed them engraved wedding programs. John Watson was feeling seriously underdressed—not so much his out-of-date brown suit, but the lack of weaponry. If he'd brought his service revolver along, though, someone would probably have confiscated it.

They walked into a wood-paneled meeting room with a high arched ceiling. All of the window drapes had been pulled wide open to reveal the gardens and the night sky, but other than that, the suite looked much like every other civilian wedding venue that John had been involved with—hothouse orchids and lilies, an overabundance of candles, white bunting everywhere—although there were fewer guests than he would have expected. The ones on the left were mostly elderly gentlemen with an academic air and even older white-haired ladies. Most of the people on the bride's side seemed right out of EastEnders—uncomfortable in their formal clothes and a bit unnerved by the old-fashioned but posh environment.

After taking one panicked look at the guests, Sherlock hastily slid into a back-row chair on the far right. Sitting down beside him, John hissed, "What are you doing? We're supposed to be on the bridegroom's side."

"Mycroft has invited the aunts and great-aunts. I don't want them to notice me."

"Good luck on that. It won't take a genius detective to pick out the only men in the room that are under forty." Giving up on the niceties of wedding protocol, John flipped through the program with a certain mild curiosity. So Mycroft's middle name was Arthur—but he still went by 'Mycroft.' Huh.

In the row ahead of them, three middle-aged women were whispering a bit more loudly than they probably assumed.

"How can a man in a minor government position afford to get married in a pricey place like this? Sylvia didn't spring for it, I'll tell you that for nothing!"

"These government officials! One way or another, I'm sure it came out of our tax money!"

"No, no, I got the whole story from Sylvia. Frequent flier miles! The poor fellow's been jetting around the globe for years coordinating government meetings and he cashed them all in to give Donna a fancy wedding."

"So he travels out of the country most of the time? I don't think I'd want a husband who had a job like that. Who knows what he'll be getting up to, far away from home?"

"Well, at least Donna's getting married. After that other business I thought she'd never-"

"Shhh! It's starting. There's the bridegroom up in front."

"Losing his hair, isn't he?"

John glanced at his flatmate and realized that, for a change, Sherlock was restraining his usual antisocial impulses—he wasn't laughing. Under the circumstances it was quite good of him.

Mycroft Holmes had, indeed, made his entrance at the front of the room. His mouth was fixed in its usual ironic smirk and his eyes were sweeping the room in a dire stare. After a quick eyeroll when he noticed where they were sitting, he paid no further attention to them.

There was something a little off about Mycroft, though. His wedding clothes were exactly what you'd expect of him—dove-grey tuxedo, immaculate white shirt, and an insolent crimson bow tie—but something was subtly different. John couldn't quite put his finger on it—oh. Mycroft's hands were half-concealed at his sides, but both were clenched into fists.

Uh oh. If the man was already losing his temper it couldn't be a good sign for the upcoming nuptials. Then again, perhaps he'd simply been overhearing the gossip.

As an unseen accompanist began to play a classical piece on a harpsichord, the bride began to walk down the aisle on the arm of yet another wizened old man and the hoarfrost surrounding Mycroft Holmes suddenly melted.

Donna Evelyn Noble was wearing an ice-blue wedding gown ablaze with silver spangles and a Spanish lace mantilla was draped over her red hair, but otherwise she seemed—completely ordinary. The sort of woman you'd expect to find at Tesco's squeezing a cantaloupe. It didn't fit what John knew about Mycroft.

Well, if he'd wanted an elegant stunner he'd certainly known where to find one.

Out of the corner of his mouth, John hissed to his flatmate, "Sherlock. You remember the part of the service where they say, 'Speak now or forever hold your peace'? Don't. Just—don't."

When the ceremony started they could barely hear the voice of the elderly chaplain, but Mycroft's 'I do's' were loud and uncompromising and Donna Evelyn's were even louder. As the new bridegroom bent to kiss his ordinary-looking bride he seemed happy enough—although John had learned to be wary of Sherlock's brother when he was smiling.

"I thought it would take longer," Sherlock mumbled.

"The wedding or the kiss?"

"Oh, the wedding, definitely."

"Weddings are over fast. It's the marriage that puts on the mileage."


	4. Royal Crescent Hotel, Bath

**Thanks to my reviewers-you make it all feel worthwhile!**

**For those who might be interested: my title comes from a famous quote in the Sherlock Holmes story 'Silver Blaze':**

**"Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?" "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." "The dog did nothing in the night-time." "That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.**

The reception turned out to be a buffet instead of a sit-down dinner. This seemed a bit tatty—at least for someone like Mycroft—but it had to be nearly bedtime for most of his elderly relatives, so it was probably better to wind things up fast. In any case the food looked good and John was famished. He'd had nothing but crisps all the way to Bath.

Once again the wedding guests had split into two distinct groups. Donna's people were milling about at the buffet table eating cake and gossiping—about Mycroft, probably—while the bridegroom's coterie had ensconced itself by the bar to hash out some long-irrelevant sex scandal involving John Major.

"But I thought that you liked him, Mycroft," a tweedy academic remarked in a piercing voice.

"Did you? I don't remember it that way at all," Mycroft answered in a tone of chilly dismissal. His shiny-new bride was standing at his side, her fingers threaded together with his. She had a fixed smile pasted on her face and she wasn't saying anything.

John had a momentary sense of fellow-feeling. As he well knew, it was almost impossible to talk over a Holmes.

At that moment a bright-eyed little old lady in Group Two trilled out, "Why Sherlock! How nice to see you here! I hardly expected that you'd be willing to show up for something like this. How is the detecting getting on?"

Sherlock flinched. "Save me, John. It's my Great-Aunt Jane."

"I'll save you from criminals but I'm not saving you from your relatives. Except for Mycroft. I'll make an exception for Mycroft."

As the fluffy-haired octogenarian carried off a feebly-protesting Sherlock, John filled his elegant if diminutive china plate with tiger prawns and little cheese muffins, then sidled over to the far side of the room to eat them. Out of the corner of one ear he could overhear Great-Aunt Jane saying sweetly, "But dear, of course it would be a cab driver."

John shuddered. Were they all like that?

While he was mulling over this awful possibility, Mycroft's PA stalked into the room. She pushed her way through the guests nattering at the bar, snatched up a bottle and glasses, and made a beeline toward John.

Her mouth was a frown waiting to happen. Mycroft hadn't dumped her, had he? John had no idea why, but for some reason women often picked him as a suitable audience for their 'dump' stories.

He set down his plate on an end table. It was better to have both hands free when you were dealing with Anthea. "Rather a peculiar group, wouldn't you say? Doesn't Mycroft know anyone under fifty?"

Anthea glowered at him. "He specified that he wanted friends and family only. I did what I could but I'm his PA, not his wedding planner."

"Sorry." She certainly didn't sound like her heart was broken. It was probably just the usual my-boss-is-acting-like-an-idiot sort of thing.

Pouring out generous amounts of Scotch into both glasses, Anthea offered one to him. "You look like you could use a drink."

"Oh God yes."

When Anthea turned the bottle to show him the label, John had to admit that Mycroft hadn't skimped on the liquor.

"Glenlivet Single Malt. My favorite Scotch," he commented with respect.

"Yes, I know."

John took an appreciative sip. It would cost him later, but it was worth it. "Why exactly are you being so nice to me?"

Anthea ran one finger down the side of her glass and scanned the reception area. "Because your flatmate is a consulting detective."

"And?"

"Ms. Donna Noble was engaged to be married once before—to a Mr. Lance Bennett, head of human resources for the HC Clements Company. On the day of the wedding he disappeared without a trace and hasn't been seen since. And believe me, I looked everywhere."

"What did Mycroft say?"

Mycroft's PA stared expressionlessly into her Scotch. "He said, 'You needn't worry about it, Anthea.' I don't like this. He's acting completely outside his normal pattern."

"So you want Sherlock to investigate?"

"Everyone knows that Sherlock Holmes investigates whomever and whatever he pleases. Why shouldn't it please him to find out what's going on with his brother?"

Anthea directed pleading eyes at him—something completely outside her own normal pattern—until he nodded reluctantly. "I suppose he'd enjoy it as a chance to annoy Mycroft."

"Thanks. I owe you one."

She disappeared as quickly as she'd appeared. Could she be making too much out of all this? Maybe yes, maybe no, John said to himself. His own instincts were telling him that something was going on with Mycroft Holmes.

Perhaps he ought to do a bit of investigating himself. Yes, that might be a good idea—especially since the white-haired man gazing out the window not twenty feet from him was the same old fellow who'd walked down the aisle with the bride.

Grabbing the bottle and his glass, John wandered in that direction. When he reached the window he checked quickly for anything outside that might be suspicious, but saw only a quiet garden beneath the stars.

What deductions would Sherlock be making, if his Great-Aunt Jane hadn't snagged him?

First off, the old boy was ex-military and at least eighty years old. (That was a no-brainer—he was wearing a Korea medal.) His tux was new but not shiny-new, so it was most likely rented. (Of course it was—what normal man owns a tuxedo?) Finally and most important, he too was holding a glass—but his was empty.

"It's been a night, hasn't it?" John remarked innocuously, and held out the bottle.

His window-mate eagerly raised his glass to be refilled and smacked his lips with enthusiasm at the first taste. "Good stuff!"

John nodded. "The best. Mycroft's wedding planner got it for me especially."

"So, you one of his relations?"

"God, no. I'm his brother's friend, John Watson," John said hastily.

"Wilfred Mott, Donna's granddad. Call me Wilf." Wilf pressed his nose against the glass once more. "Look at those stars! Twice as bright as they are in London. It's worth coming down all the distance just to see 'em."

When he heard the word 'stars', John couldn't help but remember the Van Buren supernova—one of the few occasions on which Sherlock had admitted that John might be right about a case. "I suppose so. I don't expect they're the reason Mycroft chose Bath for his wedding, though."

Wilf gave him a sly look. "Don't you? You might be surprised."

"Ever met him before today?" As John well knew, first meetings with Mycroft could be problematic.

"Couple of times," Wilf answered casually. "I went out to dinner once with him and Donna. Ever eaten hummus?"

"Occasionally." He'd gotten pretty sick of it in Afghanistan, actually.

"Mycroft took us to a Greek restaurant that's owned by one of his neighbors." Wilf shrugged. "I can't say I've met him often. They were only engaged for a few months, you know."

That was true, John realized. According to Anthea they'd met at a July staff meeting. August, September, October…

Wilf must have picked up on his counting the months, because he bridled up and looked affronted. "In case you're wondering, my granddaughter isn't pregnant."

"No, no, I wasn't thinking that," John said sheepishly. "It's just that—well, I don't suppose I'm the first to say that it's hard to imagine what they see in each other."

"It's hard to imagine what a man like Mycroft Holmes sees in our Donna, you mean. He's a smart fella, and he knows there's a lot more to her than you'd guess just from looking," Wilf said proudly. "I like him. Donna's finally found a man who'll take good care of her."

John wasn't going to say it, but it was manipulative Mycroft that he couldn't imagine a normal woman wanting to marry. On the other hand, Mycroft probably hadn't introduced himself to Wilf's granddaughter by hauling her off and interrogating her.

After a few moments of silence, Wilf added defensively, "When I said he'd take care of her, I wasn't talking about money. Donna's worked for a living since she was eighteen and she can take care of herself. She could take care of Mycroft, if it ever came to that."

A bizarre image popped into John's head of a redundant Mycroft forced to live off his wife's earnings in a one-bedroom flat. But no, Mycroft Holmes would never deign to accept the dole. If all else failed, he'd set himself up as a consulting detective and poach his brother's cases.

"I assume you've been told the 'frequent flyer miles' story. What do you think of it?"

"That I'm not fool enough to believe it. Mycroft seems to have expense accounts for everything, and Donna told me he's got family money, too." Wilf finished his drink and set the glass down on the windowsill. "But her mother wouldn't want to think that Donna's marrying someone who's too far—well, Sylvia's a fine woman and we love her dearly, but sometimes facts upset her. So Donna and I try not to bother her with them."

It would seem that the woman Mycroft had married shared his taste for dissimulation. They had that much in common, anyway. An amused John asked, "Do you know what Mycroft actually does for a living?"

Wilf winked at him as he turned to leave. "Does anybody?"

No sooner had Wilfred Mott wandered off into the bosom of his relatives than Sherlock reappeared from out of nowhere. "John! We've got to get out of here right now!"

"Why?" John demanded, startled. He really should have brought his revolver.

"You hear, but you do not listen. The building's sound system has been turned on. That means there's going to be either speeches or dancing."

"Right then, which direction do we go?" John said without hesitation.

Detective and doctor both scarpered through the nearest side door into a chilly courtyard that was lit by pale Chinese lanterns and furnished with a scattering of umbrellaed café tables. Box hedges on both sides blocked the streets of Bath from view. John stuck his hands in his pockets and craned his neck to look up at a mercifully cloudless sky. "This is ridiculous! After everything else that we've been through—"

At that moment the first muffled chords of an ancient Moody Blues song sounded through the plate glass windows of the Dower House. If they hadn't escaped when they did, he'd be dancing with eighty-year-olds.

"—never mind. This is really an awful wedding. Except for the food. I'll give Mycroft this, he has good caterers."

Even by moonlight it was clear that Sherlock was busily making deductions. "It's a very odd scenario. Mycroft has to be up to something but so far I haven't figured out what it is."

John didn't want to tell him about Anthea's request just yet. As soon as he did, Sherlock would run off to chivvy Mycroft and probably disrupt the reception. "Believe it or not, Sherlock, men and women decide to get married every day for reasons that their families can never fathom. Sometimes it's just—chemistry."

"You mean sex?" Sherlock said disdainfully. "This is the twenty-first century. People don't need to get married just for sex."

"If they want it on a consistent basis, they do." The London singles scene could be harrowing—especially when you had to introduce Sherlock Holmes as your flatmate.

Sherlock pulled up his jacket collar a little higher and scowled at nothing in particular.

"Whatever Mycroft is up to, John, he apparently considers it worth shocking every surviving member of our family. I'm surprised that none of his political or government cronies showed up tonight."

"Anthea said that your brother specified 'friends and family only'."

"Did he? Hmmmph. No wonder it was such a small wedding."

John had thought exactly the same thing, but hadn't been crass enough to say so.

"Nothing is as interesting as a secret. By eight o'clock tomorrow morning—noon at the latest, since it's the weekend—everyone in Whitehall will be talking about my brother's marriage." Sherlock frowned abstractedly. "This wedding has to be a fake. Am I to believe that Mycroft is marrying a woman he's only known for two months? He's waited longer for a pair of shoes!"

There was one thing John did believe—that Mycroft had gone to some lengths to convince the bride's grandfather it was a real marriage. If he'd been pulling the wool over Wilf's eyes the whole time it would be the worst thing he'd ever heard of him.

Meanwhile, Sherlock had pulled a packet of cigarettes from his coat pocket. "You will agree that this is not a non-smoking area?"

"We're outdoors, yes, but I thought you quit!"

Sherlock smirked. "I've just attended the wedding of my only brother. Surely I'm entitled to a celebratory smoke."

Before Sherlock could light up, however, they heard a door opening behind them. He shoved the cigarettes back into his pocket. "Someone's coming. Find a place to hide."


	5. A courtyard underneath the stars

Hide? What was Sherlock thinking of? This was a wedding, not a covert op—Anthea's request notwithstanding. But John complied with a sigh. They'd barely managed to conceal themselves behind a nearby box shrubbery when Mycroft Holmes sauntered into the moonlit courtyard, his new bride hobbling alongside him.

"Slow down," she ordered. "I need to find someplace to sit so I can put my shoe back on."

"There are some chairs over there by the café tables," he pointed out. "But didn't you say that you'd broken a heel?"

"I lied," she said flatly. "I was willing to stand next to you and listen to you grilling your relatives but I draw the line at dancing with your old mathematics professor."

"He's sprier than he looks," Mycroft said with amusement.

Donna settled herself in a wicker chair and began to rummage through her skirt's maze of ruffles. "Yes, he certainly is. No, don't ask."

Mycroft watched her fumbling for a moment and then stretched out his hand.

"Give me the shoe."

She passed over her fancy high-heeled shoe—a silvery thing with a row of brilliants on the strap—and to John's great surprise, the man Sherlock called 'the British Government' knelt down to slip it onto her foot.

"There, Cinderella, it fits perfectly. Now you get to marry a prince."

"Too late! I've already got myself a very special fella." Donna braced her hands on her bridegroom's shoulders and levered herself to her feet. Rising in turn, Mycroft caught up one of her hands in his and brushed his lips on her wrist.

John Watson squirmed a bit. After all the things that Mycroft had pulled on him, he would never have believed that Sherlock's brother could make **him** feel like a voyeur. If this romance was a fake, it was the most convincing fake that he'd ever seen in his life.

"Here we are, you and I, underneath the stars together. It still feels impossible." In spite of the setting, Mycroft's words seemed more melancholy than romantic.

Donna gave him a worried glance. "Are you sure you're all right? Maybe we should have chosen some other place to get married than another fancy resort hotel."

"You needn't worry, I'm fine," Mycroft responded somewhat unconvincingly. "Let's look at the stars now since we came all this way to see them."

Two silhouettes merged together in the lantern-light. Even when you knew that one of them was Mycroft, it still managed to look romantic. When Donna finally spoke her voice was low and sentimental. "You're right, they are wonderful. I get the shivers just watching them."

Her newly-minted bridegroom pointed toward the center of the sky. "See, there's Orion."

"Yeah, but I can't remember the names of all the stars."

"That's all right, I do. Rigel, Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Mintaka, Alnilam—"

Suddenly Mycroft's body tensed as if he was readying himself for a fight and he threw his arm protectively in front of his wife. After a quick scan of the courtyard he said in a curt voice, "Hello, Sherlock. I see that you showed up after all. Have you come to offer us your good wishes?"

Unperturbed, Sherlock strode from behind the shrubbery, John right behind him as usual.

"I suppose I might—if I could rid myself of the conviction that tonight's ceremony was another one of your elaborate deceptions." Sherlock directed a disdainful sneer at his brother and his brother's wife in turn. "But no, I can't."

Mycroft rolled his eyes in derision. "I'm ashamed of you, Sherlock—theorizing in the absence of data!"

"The evidence is right here in front of me," Sherlock snapped back. "This purported bride of yours has the sort of personality you normally find obnoxious. She's loud, she's argumentative, she has no interest in politics, and moreover,"—here he focused his deductive stare at Donna—"she's carrying a great deal of baggage from her first marriage."

"Sherlock—" Mycroft growled.

Donna gently elbowed him. "No, let me answer this one."

When Mycroft did not immediately object, his bride turned her attention to Sherlock. "So you're Mycroft's brother, the consulting detective. You don't waste much time getting down to cases, do you?"

"Why should I? I came here for the truth, not the hors d'oeuvres."

"Believe it or not, I can appreciate that," Donna said calmly. "For the most part what you said about me is true, but I do think that I'd remember being married. I suppose that people ask you this a lot, but where exactly did you get the notion that I'd been married before?"

Sherlock, of course, was more than willing to explain—in detail.

"From your wedding dress. Your hairstyle and cosmetics show a totally conventional fashion sense, but your dress is unconventional in both colour and style. This suggests that you had some reason to avoid similarities to your earlier marriage—which, by the way, you still refuse to acknowledge."

"I don't acknowledge it because the man never put the ring on my finger!" Donna raised a questioning eyebrow at her husband. "So. Is that why you told me, 'I like the blue one the best'?"

Sherlock's brother looked a trifle abashed. "I truly think that it's very fetching on you, but it also occurred to me that we could both do without the déjà vu."

Donna's smile made her look much prettier. "What I wore tonight to get married really doesn't matter—because this time my bridegroom was the one and only Mycroft Holmes."

"You make it sound as if I'm some sort of pop star," Mycroft was trying to sound nonchalant, but he couldn't hide the flattered smirk on his face. "But really, I'm just a minor government official."

Donna tapped her husband lightly on one shoulder. "Oh, you!"

Scandalized, Sherlock opened his mouth to speak, but Donna beat him to it. "Okay, Sherlock, you had your turn, now let me make a deduction. Ummm…. you came here by car instead of by train… your friend wouldn't let you do the driving… and he really wishes you'd shut up now."

John wouldn't exactly call her deductions 'amazing,' but he had to admit that she'd gone three for three. Meanwhile, Sherlock's eyes had narrowed to angry slits. "Trivial. You saw the outline of the car keys in John's trouser pocket."

"You wouldn't say it was 'trivial' if it was your deduction!" Donna glared at Sherlock. "What's your problem, anyway? Don't you have a single scrap of family feeling?"

Before the argument could transform into a full-blown shouting match, John heroically threw himself into the breach. Sticking out his right hand to Donna, he mumbled, "Umm… hello, I'm Sherlock's friend John Watson. I didn't get the chance to introduce myself before, well, before things blew up."

Mycroft's wife, fortunately, was the sort of woman who believed in acknowledging social obligations. After taking a deep calming breath, she offered him her own hand to shake. "Oh yes, John Watson. I've read your blog, of course. Fascinating stuff! I'm Donna Noble—"

At that, she did a quick double-take. "Oh wait, I'm Donna Holmes. Getting used to the new name will take a while, but I'm sure that Mycroft will be glad to remind me."

Yes, John was quite sure of that. Mycroft was definitely the sort of man who wanted people to remember him. When the ex-army medic shook Donna's hand, he was surprised to see a thick band of white scar tissue encircling her wrist. It looked like she'd had some sort of severe wrist trauma about three or four months back. Serious enough to threaten the hand, even, although he saw no signs of residual nerve impairment.

Three or four months back. Huh. Wasn't that about the same time Donna and Mycroft were supposed to have met? Could this possibly be some sort of a clue?

Oh, no. John Watson had no intention of taking up the science of deduction. He had a flatmate to deal with things like that. Instead he did his best to coax along the conversation by asking, "You really read my blog? Which case did you find the most interesting?"

"The one with the fish!" Donna answered promptly.

"Fish? What fish?" Maybe she'd been reading someone else's blog. There were a lot of men named 'John Watson'…

"Oops! Slip of the tongue. I meant 'the star'," she corrected herself. "The whole thing was such a nail-biter. Right down to the absolute wire, and what a puzzle! I can't imagine, though, how an investigator could get along in this day and age without knowing anything about the stars."

"John has commented on that himself quite often," Sherlock remarked acidly.

"Yes, and you've commented about me commenting on it even more often than that," John retorted. He'd been foolish enough to hope that Sherlock might be willing to help him keep the peace tonight, but it was more likely that Sherlock would start a war!

"I wish I could say that what's been happening tonight is unusual," he said wearily to Donna. "But—I'm afraid it isn't. The Holmes brothers have a history. What that history entails I've never dared to ask."

Donna nodded in agreement. "I've heard some stories myself. I know that Mycroft has given you a lot of grief, John, but for what it's worth, he means well."

John considered her statement for a moment. Neither he nor Donna were children—they both knew what the road to Hell was paved with. Eventually he nodded. "I think I can accept that."

From Donna's rueful smile, she knew exactly what he was thinking. "Of course we may have to knock their heads together from time to time. Just because Mycroft's a bloody genius doesn't mean that he never needs someone to stop him."

Now that was an interesting remark. There was no doubt about it—Mycroft's bride definitely wasn't a doormat.

All this time Donna's 'bloody genius' had been holding his tongue—albeit with the occasional eye-roll—but now he protested, "What you've seen tonight isn't really my fault, Donna. For as long as I can remember, Sherlock has always tried to sabotage any woman I seemed interested in."

"For as long as you can remember?" Donna echoed in a tone of unsurprised resignation.

Mycroft did his best to look innocent, but he didn't go so far as to answer her. Instead, he turned to demand of his brother, "Do you recall what happened when I offered Julie Sommerby the use of our family swimming pool? It was the summer of 1989, and she needed to practice for a swim meet."

Sherlock shrugged. "She was one of our neighbors. A rather dull girl with large hands, as I recall."

"You didn't answer my question, Sherlock. Why don't you tell John and Donna what you did to Julie?" Mycroft persisted.

Against his better judgment, John chimed in with an irritated "Well?"

Because Mycroft wasn't the only man who'd seen his love life sabotaged by Sherlock.

After directing an accusing look at his flatmate, Sherlock reluctantly admitted, "I tossed a lion's mane jellyfish into the swimming pool."

Outraged in spite of himself, John shouted, "You did WHAT! Sherlock, that wasn't like nicking a Smurf. Those things are venomous! You could have killed her."

"Venomous, yes—but certainly not lethal for a healthy young woman like Julie," Sherlock said dismissively. "I wouldn't kill someone just because she's annoying."

"I wouldn't either—as a general rule," John muttered through clenched teeth. "But if you ever—**EVER**—pull something like that on one of my girlfriends I'll punch you in the face. And that's a promise!"

John was going to say (or shout) several other things in the same vein until it occurred to him to wonder—had Mycroft planned this all along? He wouldn't put it past Sherlock's elder brother to make him a cat's paw to slap Sherlock down for past transgressions?

There was a reason he thought of the man as 'manipulative Mycroft.'

"I'm pleased that you remember, Sherlock." Mycroft's voice was so soft that it was almost inaudible. To his surprise, John caught a flash of genuine relief in Mycroft's eyes. Relief? John asked himself, surprised. What did he have to be relieved about? This was just Sherlock acting like Sherlock.

Nudging her git of a husband with one elbow, Donna murmured, "You can't keep on interrogating people like this, Mycroft. Pushing them to remember the past for you. People are what they are. You have to accept that."

Mycroft's reply was quiet but intense. "I wasn't asking 'people', Donna—I was asking my brother Sherlock—the brother that I grew up with.

Donna heaved a deep sigh. "You shouldn't worry so much. If there's one memory that I still have from the Doctor—it's that character survives."

Sherlock's response to this increasingly enigmatic exchange was an annoyed grimace. It made him look rather like Mycroft-in one of his brother's more annoying moments. "Yes, Donna, I'm Mycroft's brother Sherlock, a high-functioning sociopath who beats corpses in a hospital morgue. Mycroft himself is a fat spider who's got half the secrets of the British Government tangled up in his web. Still happy to be the newest member of the Holmes family?"

Donna didn't even blink. "Yes, Sherlock, I am. I'm quite pleased to be Mycroft's wife. I expect that in time I'll even learn how to put up with you. Or at least learn how to ignore you, which will probably be good enough."

Sherlock, of course, had no intention of letting terrible enough alone. "Do you really think you understand what you've just signed on for? You only met Mycroft a few months ago and he's not an easy man to get a handle on. I know him as well as anyone does. He's coldblooded, close-mouthed, and controlling, and he has an endless supply of deep, dark secrets."

Donna gave him a long measuring look. "Everyone has secrets."

"Not like my brother Mycroft," Sherlock persisted doggedly. "Mycroft pushes secrecy and manipulation to the extreme. He gives orders to the Secret Service on a daily basis, he practically **is** the British Government, and he runs the CIA freelance in his spare time."

Donna's answer to this was a bland but pleasant smile. "Well, the CIA will have to run itself from now on. Mycroft has promised that he'll take me bicycling in his spare time."

Now this was a distinct surprise. Mycroft's lady was the first person John had ever met that Sherlock Holmes hadn't been able to drive into a crazed frenzy. Sherlock didn't seem to like that a bit—his cheeks were actually reddening in frustration.

"Bicycling!" Sherlock's snarl was rising to an unpleasant near-shriek. "You're an idiot, Donna! Mycroft sticks his pudgy finger into every black op in this country. Even I don't know everything that he's capable of, but I can tell you one thing—he's the most dangerous man you've ever met!"

Whatever reaction Sherlock might have been hoping for, it wasn't the one that he got. His glowering elder brother threw back his head and began to laugh. "Oh, Sherlock, you'll never make Donna believe that!"


	6. The Royal Crescent's car park

At first Mycroft's atypical burst of laughter seemed almost funny, but after a bit John realized uneasily that he was laughing a little too loudly and a little too long. Donna noticed it too. She bounced nervously on her heels for a few moments, then grabbed her husband by his lapels and kissed him hard on the lips.

Mycroft stopped laughing at once. He clutched his wife tightly for a moment, then dropped his arms and sighed. "Sherlock may choose to believe that, but he's wrong. I'm afraid that I'm just a bureaucrat with a Blackberry—and I'm not particularly frightening."

Donna reached up to touch his lips with her fingertips. "Why would you want to be frightening, Mycroft, when you're so amazing?"

"Amazing?" he murmured softly.

She nodded with a look of total conviction in her eyes. "Absolutely, out-of-this-world amazing. You beat the greatest batsman that ever was—at his own game, on his own pitch, and using his own bat! I was there and I know."

Mycroft's chin went up as her words sunk in. "I did, didn't I?"

Then he took a deep breath, straightened up to his full height and barged right into Sherlock's personal space. John Watson had always been vaguely aware that Mycroft Holmes could spot his brother an inch or two in height, but between the lounging and the lurking and the umbrella-leaning, he'd always seemed the shorter of the two men. But not tonight.

Outside of a Bond movie, John had never seen a man in a tuxedo who managed to look so intimidating.

Confronting his brother nose-to-nose, sergeant-style, Mycroft growled, "This ends right now, Sherlock. I'm your brother, not one of your criminal cases, and I will not permit you to harass my wife. If you have a bone to pick with either of us, bring it to me. You know where I live."

Sherlock's eyes widened in shocked realization. "You're actually serious about all this, aren't you? You're really married to this woman."

"Bravo, what a remarkable piece of deduction!" Mycroft's lower lip curled in derision. "We sent you an engraved wedding invitation, you watched us make our vows in front of all the relatives, and if I am not mistaken, you were even handed a slice of the official wedding cake. Yes, of course we're married."

"But you're not making any sense!" Sherlock protested. "This doesn't match up in the least with anything that I know about you. I cannot understand why you're doing all this!"

"Why would you expect to understand me when you never bother to notice me?" Mycroft asked wearily. "What you think about Donna doesn't matter to me. I know that she's the most important woman in the universe."

Even to John this sounded a bit over the top. They were British, after all. He sneaked a side glance at Mycroft and realized that Sherlock's brother was hardly wallowing in sentimentality—he was giving Sherlock that fish-eye glare of his that always meant, 'I'm right and you're wrong. Disagree with me at your peril.'

To Mycroft Holmes, his wife Donna really was the most important woman in the universe.

Well, good on you, Mycroft, John mused. Maybe you are a real boy after all.

Sherlock, on the other hand, was stunned. After a moment of appalled silence, he answered shakily, "Listen to what you're saying! You don't even sound like yourself!"

His brother shook his head. "Surely you don't want me to be alone all my life, Sherlock. Whatever you may think of me, I never wanted that for you."

Not good, John said to himself. Definitely not good. Even Mycroft deserved to be the hero of his own wedding day. No matter what might happen in the marriage later, he deserved that one day of happiness. And Sherlock wasn't willing to allow it. Which meant that he and Sherlock both needed to leave before Sherlock could gin up any more insults, get into any more arguments, or burn any more bridges.

Grabbing his friend's elbow, he began to drag him away. "Goodnight, Donna. Goodbye, Mycroft. Sherlock, you've picked a fight with your brother, you've insulted your sister-in-law, and you've thoroughly irritated me. It's time for us to go—your work here is done!"

"Out of the question. I'm not finished here," Sherlock insisted.

But John had the perfect retort to that. "I've got the car keys."

Just as he was frogmarching Sherlock out of the courtyard, they were accosted by an exclamation that felt like a whip-crack. "Sherlock!"

Both men looked back warily. Mycroft and Donna were standing arm in arm—two gingers with no mind to put up with nonsense. They looked rather like a matched set.

"Thank you for the teapot," Mycroft remarked politely to his brother.

Sherlock had to spend some time rummaging through his Mind Palace to find an appropriate response. Eventually he dug up something from the bottom of the boot closet, blew off a thick layer of dust, and presented it to his brother.

"You're welcome."

All the way back to the car park Sherlock was kicking moodily at fallen leaves and muttering in outrage.

"Mycroft never acts like that. Never!"

"Hugging in public. Next he'll be doing a fan-dance."

"Drugs are definitely a possibility. But I didn't smell hashish and the symptoms are wrong for cocaine."

"It's all That Woman's fault."

John was doing his best to ignore Sherlock's statements, since they were, after all, essentially pointless. Yes, yes, he'd understood it the first time—a member of the Holmes family didn't act like this, Mycroft should never have gotten married without his brother's express permission, and the new bride was completely unacceptable.

Except that he didn't believe it for an instant. Donna struck him as a very nice lady who would probably be a much better wife to Mycroft Holmes than the man deserved. In spite of Anthea's dire suspicions, he couldn't really imagine that Donna was some sort of fiancé-slaughtering monster. Most likely she'd simply walked into somebody else's crossfire—the same way she had with the Holmes brothers.

Speaking of which, right now they needed to retreat, regroup, and let everybody have a chance to cool down. Wilf had been absolutely right—the stars here were at least twice as bright as they were in the London sky. This could still be a beautiful night for a nice quiet walk.

Fat chance of that.

After considerably more shuffling and mumbling, Sherlock stopped underneath one of the few streetlights and said in a small voice, "Mycroft sounded just like Father."

Now that was a statement that might not be so pointless. John didn't want to pry, but if this was something that Sherlock wanted to talk about, he was more than willing to listen. "What about your father?"

Sherlock's face closed up instantly. "Never mind."

Right. One more piece of Holmes history to be kicked out of the way and buried with all the rest.

It wasn't hard to find their borrowed Mini Cooper in the car park, since most of the wedding guests had been sensible enough to take the train. When they reached the car at long last, Sherlock came out with the strangest remark that John had ever heard him say:

"I was wrong."

"Wow. That's—a first," John said blankly.

"Yes, and it's also your fault. If you'd given me Mycroft's wedding invitation at the outset I could have investigated That Woman before she had time enough to get married to him."

"Oh right—after you specifically told me to 'destroy it'!" John protested automatically. "You would have pitched it into the fireplace yourself!"

"Which would have done it no harm, since the fire wasn't lit." Sherlock waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal. "Moving on. Even you, John, must have observed that my brother's behavior tonight was most peculiar."

"I'll grant you that some funny things were going on," John was compelled to agree, "but I seriously doubt that any of them were Donna's fault."

"I would hardly call tonight's happenings 'funny'," Sherlock shot back. "After forty years in which nobody else was quite good enough for him, my brother has just eloped with a typist. His new bride has already informed us that she intends to 'stop' him whenever she pleases and practically admits in so many words that she has secrets. Moreover, Mycroft's actions tonight were disturbingly erratic and his explanations practically unintelligible. I will admit that I am concerned."

"Well, now you know how he—"

"Yes, yes, I'm not an idiot," Sherlock said testily. "I know what you're going to say, so you needn't bother to say it. This is a more serious matter than you seem to think. Did you happen to notice my brother's hands tonight?"

"I noticed that he was clenching them into fists half the time." John shrugged. "Some men do get pretty up-tight at their weddings."

Sherlock shook his head grimly. "Wrong. He was clenching his hands to conceal the fact that they were shaking."

John's stomach plummeted straight down to his toes. He should have picked up on that immediately. Mycroft had certainly picked up on it quickly enough with him.

John Watson had been suffering from a bad case of battlefield PTSD. What—or who—could have possibly affected someone like Mycroft Holmes as powerfully as that?

Whatever it was, he still didn't think that it was Donna's fault.

As John was struggling to figure out an answer that made sense, Sherlock pushed on relentlessly. "Whether this turns out to be a criminal case or not, I intend to investigate it. I know that Mycroft won't thank me for this, but I have to know what's going on."

John couldn't help but twitch. 'Mycroft won't thank me'—now there was the understatement of the millennium!

He could see the logic of what Sherlock intended to do, he really could. On the face of it, Sherlock's plan was perfectly rational and practical. It just wasn't going to work. And what was worse, there wasn't much chance that he could get Sherlock to believe that.

"This is a really, really bad idea, Sherlock—you're playing with fire. Even between two siblings, there's a line that you shouldn't cross. Mycroft has made up his mind to do this and he clearly believes that he needs that woman. If you keep pushing at him and insulting Donna and trying to break them up, you'll find out sooner or later that you don't have a brother any more."

Sherlock gave him an incredulous stare. "I don't believe that for an instant. Mycroft would never react that way."

John fumbled for the keys in his pocket. It was late and there was nothing more that he could do. Sherlock was riding for a fall, and it looked like he would have to watch him take it.

"You don't? Well then, you're not as smart as Harry."

THE END

So here we are-a het 'Sherlock' story—for a change. I hope you all liked it. It's interesting to speculate on the havoc Donna would wreak on second season.

Comments are always appreciated.


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